U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as U.S. President Donald Trump listens, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
A former federal prosecutor is warning that President Donald Trump's latest revenge plot is already going off the rails.
University of Michigan School of Law Professor Barb McQuade zeroed in on a specific piece of the Justice Department's case against former FBI Director James Comey: how incredibly long it took to "investigate."
"I know Todd Blanche and Kash Patel said that they’ve been investigating the case, but my gosh, they had the post in May and they interviewed Comey the next day," McQuade told The New Republic's Greg Sargent for the morning podcast. "I don’t know what more is necessary. Go out to sea and find the actual seashells? I don’t think so."
This is a charge she's personally prosecuted before and the barrier for the DOJ will be the requirement that the charge be for a "true threat."
"It’s not enough to say, I don’t like the president or even to say the president should die. You have to express a true threat," she explained.
However, as national security lawyer Bradley Moss explained to CNN, it isn't about the crime or even the charge, it's about Trump's revenge against Comey, his demand to indict someone in retaliation for his own indictment. What Trump wants is the "spectacle" and the "headline," he said.
Overnight, Trump took to Truth Social to spread the urban legend that the term "86" came from the mob term to "drive eight miles out" and put them "six feet under." There were a few mentions of the term associated with the film "Casino." The film's transcript shows that even in an infamous mob movie, the term was used to describe someone being thrown out. Not killed.
"I suppose Donald Trump thinks it’s used by the mafia — I guess he would know," she quipped.
The fact that Comey made it clear publicly that it wasn't his intent to threaten violence further undermines the case.
"There’s just no way a jury unanimously finds 12 people — beyond a reasonable doubt — that this was an effort to convey a serious threat of unlawful violence," said McQuade.
She went on to explain that the DOJ never brings charges "unless it is probable that they can obtain and sustain a conviction based on admissible evidence." In this administration, however, McQuade said that it's about making "a person’s life miserable by indicting them. They’ve got to undertake the expense of hiring a lawyer. There’s stress on them and their family. It’s disruptive of their lives. It can harm their reputation. All of those kinds of things will happen to Jim Comey, even if he ultimately is exonerated at trial, which is what I fully expect to happen."
They went on to discuss the efforts to by Trump's DOJ to go after the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group that ultimately brought down the KKK. There's also another battle from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is going after ABC affiliates who aired Jimmy Kimmel's show the night before the shooting. The FCC claims Kimmel, too, was making a threat against Trump by saying his wife had the glow of a widow. It adds up to three major revenge cases that Trump officials have brought and that have little chance of succeeding.
It prompted Sargent to wonder whether acting Attorney General Todd Blanche knows that the cases won't result in a conviction, but is using them as an audition to be the permanent AG.
The problem Blanche will run into, McQuade explained, is "DOJ lawyers are constrained by two things. One is the principles of federal prosecution, which say partisan politics may never factor into a charging decision and a prosecutor should bring a case only if they believe that the evidence makes it probable that they will obtain and sustain a conviction. That means a trial jury will convict them, and on appeal, your legal theory is sound and it will be affirmed."
Blanche also has a good-faith constraint. In most states, ethics rules require a "good faith" prosecution.
Sargent closed by asking if there's any kind of accountability that can come, but McQuade suspects that Trump will pardon everyone on his final days in office. There are possible civil lawsuits and monetary damages. Typically, immunity protects prosecutors, but McQuade warned that not operating in good faith could result in an exception.